The Santa Claus Parade 2018

We’ve been asked a couple of times why we chose to check out the Toronto Santa Clause Parade. Well first off, it’s super fun and there is hot chocolate. So that in and of itself is good enough reason. That said if you want a bit more context about the parade and why we think about it… read on.

 

 

 

 

 

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Check out The Toronto Santa Claus parade in 60 seconds! #christmas #santa #parade #costume #winter #christmastime #toronto #the6ix #santaclaus #torontolife

A post shared by TorontoCreatives.com (@to_creatives) on Nov 30, 2018 at 9:06am PST

In 1905 The Eaton chain of department stores funded the first Santa Clause parade in Toronto, delivering Santa himself from Union Station (where he presumably arrived by Go Bus) to the downtown Toronto Eaton Centre store.

The Santa Claus Parade is a not-for-profit organization (which means it doesn’t operate with the express intention to make money – although it’s allowed to make as much as it likes). The parade currently boasts partners/sponsors such as Sunlife Financial, Scotia Bank, CIBC, TD Bank, Manulife / John Hancock, Leon’s, Nintendo, The Bumble Bee Movie (I swear), EB Games, The Elf on the Shelf, Volkswagen and Marant – an award-winning interior construction company. Good for them!

The parade is the third largest parade in North America. Period. It draws a massive crowd starting at Christie Pits and meanders it’s way through the city eventually ending at St. Lawrence Market. It takes about 2.5 hours to watch the whole thing end-to-end. They say “thousands” overall, but I expect it’s a bit more.

So, this is a crazy example of activation marketing (before activation marketing was a thing) merging with cultural tradition. 😉 

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